Buyers And Sellers Unrealistic: NAR
The NAR has this out on todays housing market. “A lower level of home sales expected this year will create a more level playing field for buyers and sellers on the heels of a five-year sellers’ market. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
“‘The cooling from overheated sales conditions in recent months is helping to bring inventory levels up to the point where buyers have more choices than they’ve seen in the last five years,’ Lereah said. ‘Annual price appreciation is still running at double-digit rates, but the cause of those sharp increases is going away.’”
“Existing-home sales are expected to fall 5.7 percent to 6.67 million in 2006 from the record 7.08 million last year. At the same time, new-home sales are forecast to decline 7.7 percent to 1.18 million from a record 1.28 million in 2005.”
“NAR President Thomas M. Stevens said some home buyers and sellers have unrealistic expectations. ‘Some sellers in markets that have had rapid appreciation are listing the price of their home too high, but those homes are just languishing on the market,’ said Stevens. ‘At the same time, some buyers who have believed hype about a housing bubble are hoping prices will drop, but that’s not happening either.’”
No link available for this statement from the Santa Barbara, California realtors president. “Have you ever tried selling a car by placing an ad? How did you feel when prospective buyers said the car wasn’t worth the asking price? When selling your home, you may hear the same objections. Do those comments mean you will have to reduce your price to achieve a sale? Not neccesarily - if you are represented by a realtor. Recognizing that certain features..may be attractive to the prospects, they may be presented as offsetting benefits, thus neutralizing buyers’ concerns. This eliminates the need to offer price reductions as the only solution to objections.”The Herald Tribune reports on prospects for new realtors in Florida. “Jake Morse recently decided to become a Florida real estate agent. You might think he is crazy. After all, the Sarasota-Bradenton market just witnessed a 48 percent decline in January closings, and there are three times more homes for sale now than a year ago.”
“The number of real estate agents who pay for membership in the Sarasota Association of Realtors has risen 109 percent since early 2001, to a total of 4,861. It is the same story down south, even more exaggerated, with the Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port Association of Realtors showing a 123 percent five-year increase in paying members to 1,648. Statewide, the number has doubled to 154,558 in five years.”
“At the Andy Gray School of Real Estate in Sarasota, classes were running flat-out all last year, with a typical waiting list of a dozen or more. Now, the list is gone.”
“Ken Miller thought he knew what he was doing last summer when he became an agent. ‘The easy money is gone,’ Miller said. ‘Right now, real estate is really, really slow. First of all, we had a market when I got my license where we had a plethora of buyers and no sellers. And now, we have no buyers but plenty of sellers. It has been a roller coaster, to tell you the truth.’”
“He has so far landed only four listings, two of which have eventually sold. ‘I only got half the transaction. That’s not enough to survive, I’ll tell you that. It really isn’t.’”
“When he started as an agent in 1978, it took him a year to receive his first commission check, Ron Cornette recalled. His advice? Get a job with one of the agencies that has a division dedicated to selling condominium conversions, subdivision properties or new condos for a builder. That way, Cornette reasons, ‘You do have somebody to talk to every day.’”
Say a very new BMW 3 series yesterday with a local Realty company logo on the back windshield… my wife also noticed that it had 3 for sale signs hanging on its windows!!!!
Is there such a thing as an “open car”?
new carpeting, new paint and a granite dashboard. it has all the amenities.
Great, maybe they think they can flip cars.
Hope it has roll bars
I see some homes priced aound here for about 440k. In the subdivision 1 home has been priced at 299k for 2150 sq ft. This is about 140 / sq ft. The homes priced at 440k are around 2600 sq ft. They are way overpriced. It is getting unreal down here.
140 a sq. ft. does not seem that out of line to me especially if this is a new home tract .
Time to get a kia
The probably bought for 35K and are trying to sell, 1-year later, for 42K. Why don’t they just wait another year and sell for 50K???
‘At the same time, some buyers who have believed hype about a housing bubble are hoping prices will drop, but that’s not happening either.’”
Really? All the have to do is sit on their money and watch it happen.
Agreed. It hasn’t happened…yet. They base this all on numbers from a few months ago. I don’t think we’ll see the end of price appreciation in the numbers until the summer at the earliest, and maybe even after that. There are always a few fools left.
There are until there aren’t; fools certainly do seem to be in short supply anymore, given the rapid buildup in inventory in places like SD and PHX.
‘At the same time, some buyers who have believed hype about a housing bubble are hoping prices will drop, but that’s not happening either.’”
………..yet. We’re still in the “denial phase” and have yet to slide into the “panic phase”. But with all the hard info coming through the media lately and undeniable signs everywhere, we’re very close. You can just feel we’re at the breaking point.
in that same paragraph it says SOME buyers are listing too high…doesn’t that mean prices must DROP? realtorspeak at it’s finest.
………..yet. We’re still in the “denial phase” and have yet to slide into the “panic phase”….
I agree. The excuse right now is that we are in the midst of the slow winter season, which is being further exacerbated by some loony-tunes idea the media created about a “housing bubble”. But don’t worry; spring is just over the horizon and it will bring a seller’s paradise.
If the spring doesn’t bring lots of buyers willing to pay anything for a cracker box, we could see the beginning of the panic phase by summer.
Well said
May not be shown in there past looking stats… but I can look at any neighborhood in my city and houses on the market are back to ‘04 prices….
I can’t recall, are you in Santa Monica as well?
Northwest Florida (Destin)
I second that, it just takes time. This is not the stock market. The sellers will drop eventually,,, they did in the last bubbles
—AL
Ignore all the Reduced Price listings! There is no inventory buildup! Ignore the man behind the curtain. I am the Great Liereah!
Who’s calling the shots. I’ll be unrealistic until someone meets my price. I don’t HAVE TO BUY you losers.
That is exactly it, the costs of no-homeownership are relatively low.
I know Europe is not the US but still … it’s now about 4 years after many people called the end of the EU RE bubble (and at least 10 years after the bubble started for most EU countries).
Inventory and prices have been rising ever since, while sales numbers have been stable or going down. Double-digit appreciation has slowed to single-digit appreciation, but that’s about the only sign that the bubble is getting tired.
Don’t hold your breath …
Money in Europe is still CHEAP, CHEAP, CHeap.
The STRESS of buying at inflated prices hasn’t really taken hold there.
And while our money is still too cheap, also, it is starting to ratchet up to the point that it starts to impact peoples ability to hold up the debt obligations.
I think EU will start to decline now also, as the ECB is also making small concessions to the cheap money policies.
yes, money is still free here
But what if Bernanke starts lowering interest rates again this summer? Maybe he just wants to get rid of the speculators, and after that the RE games for the Joe Sixpack can continue? I think that would produce a scenario very similar to Europe.
There was a little panic here around 2001/2002, with significant price drops for expensive homes - but the market recovered very quickly. I’m not sure if that was because of lower interest rates, because ECB tightening began (very slowly) at the end of 2001 when the pause in some EU housing markets was already a fact.
If he lowers rates then the dollar falls and inflation runs rampant.
He still just might have to do that to ratchet down our govt debt. Talk about being between two rocks and one hard place.
that worries me too…that interest rates will drop again, propping things up for longer and prompting people to be more willing to believe the lying realtors and “get in before it’s too late!”.
It’s all about the converting option ARMS etc. in 06-07. These will be highly motivated sellers puking up their houses in a hurry. No parallel in Europe or in US history for this. That is why this will not be a 10 year slow soft landing. It will be a ‘quick’ three year meltdown.
Europe is not the US, because ‘flipping’ is not prevalent in Europe. Additionally, in the US there has been more mortgage lending which has the potential to lead to distress.
yes, we have less flipping - but we certainly have our share of toxic mortgages, even if they are very different from the US. Judging from what I’m reading here I think the loan-to-income value in some EU countries (UK, Netherlands) is higher than in the US.
And to add to the distress, the pricegains in some EU countries are much bigger than in the US (even bigger than in nearly all of the ‘hot areas’) so there could be more downside risk.
I’ve lived 25 years in Holland and 25 in the US. I think the 2 don’t compare well, the the psychology is very different between the two.
The “moronic craziness” level is much higher here in the US. The peaks are higher, the valleys lower.
Europe is much more “middle of the road”, call it “sensible”. I predict that RE will fall much harder in the US.
The “moronic craziness” level is much higher here in the US. The peaks are higher, the valleys lower. Europe is much more “middle of the road”, call it “sensible”. I predict that RE will fall much harder in the US.”
Oh, please. Your homeland gave the world the ill-fated Tulip Bubble, and from personal observation I don’t think Europeans have some innate sense of common sense and restraint that Americans lack — I mean, look at your ludicrous social welfare systems and insane social policies. From what I can tell Europe is in the grip of an even bigger RE speculative frenzy than the US, though to their credit, they at least value their farmland and green spaces and tightly regulate development.
Approximately what percentage of home loans in the Netherlands are Option ARMs or NegAms? And what are the terms of your HELOCs?
I talked to a co-worker today, just moved here and bought a house in Ann Arundel county (a MD suburb of DC), paid like 670K, when it was listed for like 760K. That’s over a 10% drop.
Call me Nostradamus, but a year from now I bet your co-worker’s “bargain price” of $670K will seem grossly excessive.
“NAR President Thomas M. Stevens said some home buyers and sellers have unrealistic expectations. ‘Some sellers in markets that have had rapid appreciation are listing the price of their home too high, but those homes are just languishing on the market,’ said Stevens. ‘At the same time, some buyers who have believed hype about a housing bubble are hoping prices will drop, but that’s not happening either.’”
Patient buyers will be richly rewarded once this standoff between buyers and sellers plays out…
Just remember the NAR shills have a vested interest in keeping alive the various myths that make buyers anxious:
“Real estate prices always go up.”
“Buy now or you will be priced out forever.”
“Price appreciation may slow down this year, but it never has and never will go negative.”
Anxious buyers or anxious sellers, it really doesn’t matter. It just has to be one or the other, not both. If everyone’s anxious we got a stale market, very bad for realtors.
one would think that’s true, but I have a theory that since what drives the realtor rhetoric is *mostly* the wealthier “agents”, they have calculated that it’s worth their while to keep spewing the lies and doublespeak until this little ‘blip’ is past. They’ve Once it becomes part of anybody’s perception that prices *can* move in either direction, a really important part of their pitch and their scheme is GONE. They’ll buy your house if you don’t get “your price”, they swear it! After all, it’s a great investment, always will be!
What matters is who can afford to wait longer. Let’s see — renting costs about 2/3 the cost of owning, assuming no future price appreciation, and future price appreciation appears to be dropping towards zero, and there is no reason it cannot go into reverse given that nobody can really afford to buy at current SoCal prices except for trust fund babies and their parents. Any ideas on whether buyers or sellers will win the standoff?
Let me just get this straight.
The NAR have blamed just blamed everyone for the slowdown.. Except, of course, their ethical selves..
Oh bother.
Grim
Northern NJ Real Estate Bubble
Seller’s will blink first or bleed to death. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
” Today’s market has changed a lot from the conditions we’ve seen during the last five years.”
True. Its still whitewashing the situation. It should read “The market has declined a lot from what we’ve seen during the last five years.”
David
Bubble Meter Blog
The NAR has this out on todays housing market. “A lower level of home sales expected this year will create a more level playing field for buyers and sellers on the heels of a five-year sellers’ market. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
“Nicely?” BwaHaHaHaHaHa!!!
The death throes of the bubble have brought about a final blowout of prices, record low affordability, higher mortgage rates, a race to build new homes and covert condos, and an inventory crash in local markets formerly known as frothy. All of these adjustments currently underway are tilting the playing field in the buyers’ favor at a record pace. The playing field has been unlevel for years, and will remain so, except the advantage has now flipper-flopped to the buyers.
It’s called. “I don’t want to get fired by the NAR and lose my job, who will hire me?”
No one will hire a liar. Wait, except maybe FNM.
“David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
Bet his facial tic told another story altogether….
Wow, selling homes can be so lonely with no one to talk to the whole day!
At least sign twirling provides the benefit of exercising your ARMs.
I sent Ben a photo of two sign twillers at the same intersection. They will have someone to talk to! LMAO
Then you have an Option of which ARM to follow.
That’s the best housing bubble pun I’ve heard yet! : )
“At the Andy Gray School of Real Estate in Sarasota, classes were running flat-out all last year, with a typical waiting list of a dozen or more. Now, the list is gone.”
What a remarkable coincidence! The waiting list for Realtor (TM) school vanished at exactly the same time as all the buyers.
It’s called “Time to get a REAL job”
Not to be confused with the Andy Devine School of Real Estate…
All those illegal immigrants that built all these houses so these builders, developers, realtors, lenders could get rich will now be competing with these realtors and lenders when they start looking for a real job.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Simple, simple thought. If real estate can be ‘incredible’, ‘a seller’s market’, ‘overheated’, with ‘Annual price appreciation is still running at double-digit rates’, and ‘rapid appreciation’ …..
why oh why can’t the opposite be true? Where is it written that everything only goes up in value, and any suggestion to the contrary is called ‘hype’?
I think the term “buyers market” is completely inappropriate. We need a new term to describe the condition of the market that is under a full blown correction. It will not be a “buyers market” until the correction is complete. I think “fools market” works for now, but the thinkers on this blog could probably come up with something better. Let’s here it…….
Sounds exactly right.
How about ..”The blind leading the blind market”
No, “Fools Market” works fine. We all get tempted when we see a flailing seller in his/her 4th. consecutive week of offering nickel dime price reductions on their over priced McChateaux DON’T WE?
“falling market” or “declining market” or “falling knife market”
David
Bubble Meter Blog
Maybe just “the Crevass.”
I think the term “buyers market” is completely inappropriate. We need a new term to describe the condition of the market that is under a full blown correction. It will not be a “buyers market” until the correction is complete. I think “fools market” works for now, but the thinkers on this blog could probably come up with something better.
Sorry about the repeat. My bad…..
““Existing-home sales are expected to fall 5.7 percent to 6.67 million in 2006 from the record 7.08 million last year”
Hmmm, based on Jan & Feb returns, it appears that Mr. Lereah might find himself in a re-run of the Lucy Show… “Lucy, ju got sum ’splainin’ to dooo”.
If current trends stay on track the number should be south of 4M sales. In fact, it might be a little unrealistic to assume the already lost volume can be made up if the pace continues from here at last year’s levels. My bet: Mr Lereah resigns before the counting is all over for ‘06….
No resignation will be necessary. Given shortness of human memories regarding matters of financial history, spin will do just fine for Mr. Lereah.
So funny, like they think potential buyers are sitting around with chin in hand, deciding whether or not to buy… Hello, nobody can afford your 800k shack even if they wanted to. Duplex next to me just got renovated like a year ago, ie, chopped down all mature trees including a huge palm to start all over again. Etc. Front unit rents for about 1600, rear for 1700. I see it is back on market asking $1.1 mil. How does that work? Must b some BIG tax break way 2 sophisticated for me…
I am not a buyer right now because I choose not to even entertain the idea of “buying” at these prices. This is for two reasons, a) I see a disconnect between value and asking prices to the degree that I can only see prices coming down and thus no reason to catch a falling knife and b) the affordability for me is out of reach using fixed 30 yr and ARMs are not a reasonable loan instrument because rates are headed upward.
So I am not a buyer right now. I am a watcher. A very patient watcher. The longer I watch the more I can save for my down payment.
That’s a good term: “Falling Knife-Catcher’s Market”.
I actually AM one of those mythical buyers, sitting with chin in hand. Waiting for a 30% drop. My guestimate, based on history, 3-5 years out.
Sure, maybe 30% nationally. San Diego is gonna get hammered.
Where will this demand come from to increase sales??? All the FAKE demand from speculators/flippers which was 30% of some markets is GONE!
YUP……
Just looked at the HBB photo gallery… very cool!!!
Just curious if anybody knows the location of the 5th picture… the one with all the major RE companys signs… seems that most of the pictures have no caption.
I’m dizzy from the spin. What exactly is a “level playing field”?
Uh, David, last time I checkes home prices in my area are down already about 5%, not up 10% since December 2005.
This one simply amazes me. Mr. Stevens, please tell is who is responsible for “Some sellers in markets that have had rapid appreciation are listing the price of their home too high, but those homes are just languishing on the market.” REALTORS MAYBE? Or are they all FSBO’s.
The part about buyers not willing to pay overinflated prices is just laughable. Yes, Mr. Stevens, I refuse to pay $500,000 for a $300,000 house. What’s your point?
The disconnect between buyers and sellers will get corrected. Since many owners are getting pinched and find themselves flat even or upside down, it’s not a waiting game they can afford to play as interest rates continue to track north.
Foreclosure sales will help solve the pricing stand-off. Lenders don’t have patience when regulators tighten the screws…
Has anyone seen the new NAR TV ad campaign extolling the ethical virtues of REALTORS(R)? They’re hilarious and smack of desperation.
Yeah, that was a complete pile of garbage. I could go on forever about the commercial, but, why bother - Realtors ™ are just another slick, wealthy, special-interest group with loads of cash and friends in D.C. for which to divert sizable amounts of that cash.
I disagree. This is a correct description of some realtors and most probably of the NAR higher ups, but not the majority of realtors. Most realtors are simply regular people looking for a good paying job who are disappointed to find that most realtors don’t really make as great of pay per hour as they thought, and this will be even more true in the next couple of years.
Methinks the Lady doth protest too much!
‘Some sellers in markets that have had rapid appreciation are listing the price of their home too high’
strangely twisted logic … if there is still double-digit appreciation and inventory is growing strongly the problem will solve itself to the benefit of the sellers. In a year time (remember, too much inventory) the unrealistic price will be realistic thanks to the double-digit appreciation. Maybe I am missing something …
You’re not considering changes in the drivers of that appreciation. Appreciation doesn’t exist in a vacuum…it’s propelled by other factors.
also from the NAR press release: “NAR will soon revise national and regional median existing-home prices back to 1999.”
What is this about? Were the previous numbers not accurate? Is it coincidence that this change is being made just as prices begin to drop?
no, not coincidence. In the Netherlands they did the same when the appreciation slowed. You just correct the last quarters numbers downwards after the fact, so that you can report perfectly increasing prices every new quarter (or month); nobody looks at the downwardly revised old numbers (they learned this trick from the FED).
This leads to funny lines from TV news readers like: ‘last month homeprices increased again from 228.000 to 227.000 euros’. No kidding.
The realtor adds on TV and radio are hilarious. They are trying to prevent the FSBOs. Of course, with few buyers, both classes are SCREWED. Hope many floppers and lying agents go broke. The good, and ethical agents will have to work, but will get the business as time goes on.
broken arms” on cnbc
the reset period is going to be ugly
CNBC just used the word “Crash” in a question of how the market is is is not doing.
SimiGuy
David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.
——————————————————————————–
“Improving nicely”?….I’m sure that sellers are just delighted to see the rapid increase in competition. It’s these type of stupid spin comments that in my opinion eliminate all credibility of the NAR and CAR as “experts” in the field of real estate. Unfortunately, many local papers like the Orange County Register will latch onto this type of drivel and provide it a front and center position in the business section for all to read.
Yah, I had a good laugh when I read that line…who knew he was a comedian?
“David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
“Nice” and “nicely” are fluff words which don’t communicate anything. My senior high school English teacher forbade us from using either in written assignments. If you let one slip in, it was circled in red with and a “- 1″ point!
Lereah said. ‘Annual price appreciation is still running at double-digit rates, but the cause of those sharp increases is going away.’
Is this guy on drug or is he just stupid? He doesn’t make any sense.
anyhow, the interest rate hikes will disqualify a lot of buyers even if they want to stretch their budgets and risk their lifesaving. so it does not matter if the sellers are holding out, the market conditions just eliminate a lot of buyers. Prices can go up but no thing will sell.
All of the real estate pundits are using old data to say home prices are still increasing. They use YOY data from 3 months ago to claim double digit increases. Can you imagine if a stock analyst got on CNBC in March of 2000 and said the Nasdaq is still going up because we have had double digit returns the last 12 months ending January 2000. Throw your old charts away, housing prices have started falling and probably wont stop for a few years.
Do [prospective buyers'] comments mean you will have to reduce your price to achieve a sale? Not necessarily - if you are represented by a realtor. Recognizing that certain features..may be attractive to the prospects, they may be presented as offsetting benefits, thus neutralizing buyers’ concerns.
Ahhhhh, now it’s explained how realtors work hard to justify creaming off 6% of the value of a house!! When the potential buyer says ‘I think it’s worth 30% less than that’, the realtor is able to ‘present’ all those ‘neutralizing’ offsetting benefits. Eg, ‘Let me show you the granite countertops!’
Oddly, such ‘neutralizing benefits’ are becoming increasingly ineffective, even when spoken by Professional Realtors(TM).
David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
Tell that to the flipper holding 15 properties!!
“A lower level of home sales expected this year will create a more level playing field for buyers and sellers on the heels of a five-year sellers’ market. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely.”
Reminds me of that “Simpsons” episode where Mr. Burns calls in to the news show, and the anchor says, “we understand there is a nuclear meltdown happening” and Mr. Burns says, “”meltdown!” Oh these silly buzzwords … we prefer to call it “an unrequested fission surplus…”"
I have a off-topic post from LA. I was ill this weekend and watched several hours of TV. I saw Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki advertising a big “Real Estate Expo” in April. In the course of 24 hours, I must have seen this advertisement about 50 or 60 times (on several different channels). THIS IS NOT AN EXAGERATION. They are looking very hard for the last remaining “greater fools”.
nhz,
your posts on the Dutch bubble are fantastic. Keep them coming.
I think the easy money issues brought up above are key to the discussion, but I have an additional suggestion as to how things may be different here, i.e. why there’s additional impetus for US buyers to simply drop out of the market and kill the bubble in a way that hasn’t happened in NL: from what you’ve described in earlier messages, it sounds like the barriers to cheap/easy housing rental are prohibitively high there. (Disclosure: I lived in Europe for several years after college — heb zelfs een poosje in Nederland gewoond — and while I prefer to avoid generalizations, because it’s been many years and anyway it’s not as if I “know” how things work over there, my personal impression was that renting a room or an apartment in any normal city in the US (Chicago, Boston, LA — not NYC so much) was about a hundred times easier than getting one in, say, the Netherlands or Germany. So I may be reading my own sense of things into what you’ve written. But some of your descriptions have been quite graphic.) You’ve described a fairly Byzantine system of regulations and controlled supply that I would guess makes buying a home, even at absurdly high prices, vastly more attractive than it would otherwise be.
But here, it’s just so easy for people to decide not to buy … there’s a ton of rental property and it’s very easy to move from one property to another. I have a family now, I’m not a starving student any more, and it’s still just as simple as passing a perfunctory background check, putting down a security deposit, renting a UHaul truck to move our stuff, and I’m done. Not much time or expense involved.
Plus, you know, most people in the Netherlands are tapped into what’s going on in the world around them … if they see prices still going up in Spain, Ireland, France, the US, they may be sensitive to that and modify their buying behavior accordingly. For most of us in the US, there is only one party happening, and when it’s over, it’s really going to be over. I pretty much buy into that myself.
Does the name Dennis Quatrone ring a bell to anyone?
Well that is where David LIEreah will be 2 years from now along with Leslie Appleton-Young.
Dennis who???
He was THE dot-com new economy head of research in the High Tech sector at Deutche Securities. Big lawsuit against him. Poster child of the dotcom bubble.
‘At the same time, some buyers who have believed hype about a housing bubble are hoping prices will drop, but that’s not happening either.’
_________________
The party hasn’t even begun, and they’re already calling an end to it. The “fun” (for bears) won’t get going until 2007 or 2008. That is when the REAL trouble starts. Let’s see what the NAR is saying in fall/winter 2008…and even then it won’t be near the end of the downturn. We have a long, long way to go.
It appears to me that we’re making progress, and getting the word out.
Yes, we the people of Ben’s incredible blog, are having a MAJOR effect on the American psyche.
First of all, David Lereah ISN’T LYING anymore.
That’s a major change.
Secondly, the NAR PRESIDENT is ACKNOWLEDGING that people are waiting to see what will happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially created a ‘Buyer’s Strike’.
It’s grassroots, it’s low-tech, and it’s brilliant in it’s scope.
I got a few more things…
1. I believe David Lereah comes here to Ben’s blog.
2. I believe Thomas Stevens comes here to Ben’s blog.
The rhetoric changed.
The NAR is backing away from bold, sweeping statements.
I suggest we keep doing what we’re doing, and do it HARDER.
Keep telling people about the risks involved in buying right now.
Keep bringing people here to Ben’s blog.
Keep showing them the evidence- Inventory Levels- OFHEO Charts & Graphs- Income to Monthly Payment Ratios- Lack of Unbiased Sources…
I started coming here in September ‘05 when I looked at http://www.firstteam.com and I noticed that inventory levels had gone up.
From there, I found Ben’s Blog quite by accident.
I was talking to a former real estate agent friend of mine, and she said the words ‘housing bubble’- so I googled it.
That’s how I got here.
After that-
I just started talking.
Talking and talking and talking-
-to anyone that would hear me.
At work, at home, at the store, at the beach, at a concert- everywhere.
The big RE players have television advertising, newspaper advertising, radio spots, handouts, and billboards on their side.
We have word of mouth, and the internet.
Keep talking.
As you hear the NAR begin to change it’s tune…
…you have to remember this…
…it happened because of YOU.
KEEP TALKING.
TELL EVERYONE.
SAVE LIVES BY SAVING FINANCIAL FUTURES FROM RUIN.
Nice job, folks.
Man, we sure got big, big mouths- don’t we?
WE STARTED A FRIGGIN’ BUYERS STRIKE!
ROCK ON BLOGGERS!
PUSH IT!
ca renter, I agree. There is most definitely a nation-wide glut of housing right now. Supply is high and going higher. As people age and sell (or die), builders build and sell, flippers freak and sell, it will get worse and worse. Someone show me a city where you couldn’t go and buy a house tommorrow. Prices are too high now, and many people must sell. The young people better wise up and quit financing the baby-boomers retirement with exhorbitant debt-slave pricing. Wait ‘em out and you will buy at rock bottom prices. The day will come when the price of a house is nothing compared with utilities, taxes, and insurance. Don’t pay top dollar for a crappily built assembly line POS in the sticks. Watch ‘em sweat.
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a trend.
David Lereah’s numbers are beginning to crunch back. The National Association of Realtors® chief economist predicted a slow down in the market in January. He saw further declines in February. March is more of the same.
NAR Existing home sales decline prediction:
January — 4.4 percent
February — 4.7 percent
March — 5.7 percent
NAR new home sales decline prediction
January –6 percent
Feburary — 8.5 percent
March — 7.7 percent (10,000 sales more than last month)
Existing home sales outpace new home sales by a factor of roughly 6-1.
On the plus side, Lereah sees more housing starts then previously expected.
Housing starts decline predictions:
January — 6.3 percent
February — 9.4 percent
March –4.3 percent
Lereah stayed with his mortgage interest rate prediction of 6.9 percent by year end.
Despite the declines in sales activity, median home prices are still predicted to rise. Apparently, the laws of supply and demand don’t apply to housing.